If this is your first visit, be sure to
check out the FAQ by clicking the
link above. You may have to register
before you can post: click the register link above to proceed. To start viewing messages,
select the forum that you want to visit from the selection below.

Any database which in which data is being inserted, updated or deleted should be running in archivelog mode if that changed data is ever going to be needed for any purpose. Here's why:

Clearly, to recover from failure, you'll need a backup of the files lost or inappropriately modified. So, if you do restore from a backup, no changes beyond that restore are available without archiving redo logs. As a result, you should also back up your archived redo logs.

If your database is read only, or can be easily recreated, or the changes don't matter (for example in a test environment), then you don't need archivelog mode. Otherwise, you should use archivelog mode.

When you are running in archivelog mode, your redo logs will get copied to the log_archive_dest directory specified in the init.ora before they are used again. When you are in archivelog mode, you can recover to any point in time.

Non-archivelog mode will re-use your redo-logs without first copying them anywhere. You can not recover to any point in time with a database in non-archivelog mode.

You don't *HAVE* to backup your archived logs, but you should. In fact, backing up your archived logs as well as purging your archvied logs should be part of your periodic maintenance.